December 2007

It’s common to hear people say “I do not expect to change your mind” in the course of debate these days. Just recently I was debating someone on an exegetical issue involving 1Thessalonians 4:14 who said these very words to me after only one round of correspondence.

While there are instances in which this assessment is justified–such as when your opponent declares, “Nothing you say is going to change my mind,” or when, after a sufficient amount of dialogue it becomes clear that your opponent suffers from intellectual stubbornness–it is often used prematurely and inappropriately. I would advise dispensing with such talk for two reasons.

First, I think it communicates a defeatist message, and that prematurely. It may be that neither individual will change his position as a result of the debate (although they often cede various points), but one should let the debate run its course before concluding that their arguments failed to persuade their opponent.

Secondly, and more importantly, the comment is demeaning to either oneself, or one’s opponent. It can be self-demeaning in that it cedes the lack of cogency in one’s argument a priori. How can we be so sure our arguments will not persuade our opponent? If we do not think they are persuasive, why even offer them?

More often, however, such a comment is meant to demean your opponent. It communicates the idea that you don’t think he possesses enough intellectual honesty to change his position in light of the evidence you are presenting. That is very demeaning.

Whether we mean to demean the quality of our arguments, or the intellectual honesty of our opponents, such a statement is demeaning and should be used wisely and infrequently.

And for the record, I do expect my arguments for a limited use of this comment to change your mind! And so should I. If our arguments are good ones, none of us should expect any less.

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What relationship does rationality have to faith?While some only convert after they have examined the evidence for Christianity, most people convert based on a personal experience with Jesus Christ.That’s the way it was for me.I came to believe Christianity was true, not by a rational examination of the evidence, but because of my personal encounter with the risen Christ.I remain a Christian, however, not only because of my past and present experience, but because I have examined the rational evidence for Christianity and found it superior to all other worldviews.

Whether one first believes because of what they know by experience, or what they know by rationality, the fact remains that a robust faith requires both.He who first believes based on an experience needs to supplement that experience with a rational inquiry of the faith they now hold.He who first believes based on a rational examination of Christianity needs to supplement his persuasion with a personal encounter of Jesus Christ.

For further reading about the relationship of faith and rationality, see my articles on the topic at IBS:

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I was always taught that the gifts of the Spirit were only for those who have first received the Spirit.The Scriptural justification given was usually an appeal to 1Corinthians 12:13, where in the context of discussing spiritual gifts Paul said, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. Whether Jews or Greeks or slavesor free, we were all made to drink of the one Spirit.”Paul went on to compare the church to a human body, arguing that each person has a function in the body of Christ based on His spiritual gifting.It is argued, then, that if one has not received the Spirit, He is not in the body of Christ, and thus does not have a spiritual gift.I think this interpretation is mistaken both exegetically and logically.

Exegetically, Paul does not make the point those who advance this idea claim he is making.He does not argue that one must be in the body of Christ in order to have a spiritual gift.He simply notes that of those who are in the body of Christ because they have received the Spirit have a spiritual gift as well.The only thing we can gather from the text is that having the Spirit is a sufficient condition for having a spiritual gift; we cannot conclude that it is a necessary condition.While all those in the body of Christ have a spiritual gift, that does not preclude anyone who is outside the body of Christ from having a spiritual gift.Having the Spirit may be the norm for those who have a spiritual gift in NT times, but it does not mean there can be no exceptions.

Logically, it is clear that the gifts of the Spirit are not predicated on one’s possession of the Spirit.The OT saints operated in the gifts of the Spirit even though they were not filled with the Spirit.One may counter that the spiritual gifts Paul spoke of are different than what we see operative in the OT, but why should we believe that?How does an OT miracle differ from a NT miracle?How did one’s ability to discern different spirits differ in the OT from the NT?Only two of the nine spiritual gifts are unique to the NT period (different kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues).The rest were exhibited in days of old, and thus there is no reason to think that one must have the Spirit to have the gifts of the Spirit.Again, that may be the norm during the current dispensation, but there is no good reason to believe it is a hard and fast rule.

Michael J. Fox, in an interview with Maria Menounos on The Today Show, said he will continue to be an advocate for embryonic stem cell research, even though an alternative method for obtaining the functional equivalent of hES cells has been found. I don’t get it. To my knowledge Fox doesn’t have a financial stake in ESCR. His career is not on the line. He is not aspiring for political office. He is an advocate for ESCR because he wants to find a cure for the Parkinson’s he and many others suffer from, and thinks ESCR is the most promising ticket to get there. Of all the public advocates out there, he is surely most interested in the clinical success of ESCR.

That’s why I am baffled that he would not switch ships at the dock. Why continue to support ESCR when an simpler, more efficient method of obtaining the same kinds of cells has come along? The number of hESCs we can obtain will always be limited to the number of frozen IVF embryos donated to research, or the number of eggs donated for cloning (if human cloning ever proves successful). But with iPS cells, we can create a virtually unlimited supply. All we need is a skin cell! Furthermore, labs all over the world can create iPS cells, whereas only a relatively few were equipped to do ESCR and cloning.

Furthermore, surely Fox must be aware of the fact that moral concerns are largely responsible for the slow pace of ESCR. Why not support the research that everyone agrees is morally acceptable? It can only speed up the progress, because it will enjoy the support of everyone, including the federal government. I can’t figure Fox out.

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I’ve been giving some additional thought to the traditional OP interpretation of Matthew 28:19, particularly our emphasis on the importance of the singular nature of “name.” We argue that if Jesus meant for us to actually invoke three names over the baptizee (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), He should have used the plural form, “names.” Instead, He used the singular form, “name,” which is grammatically incorrect. Why did He do so? Because He only had one name in view. The disciples properly discerned that name to be His name-Jesus-and used His name exclusively in their baptismal formula. They obeyed, rather than repeated Jesus’ words.

I’m not so sure our emphasis on the singular form of “name” is justified. The use of the singular “name” is grammatically justifiable. “Of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” is a string of three genitival phrases modifying “name.” It could be argued that the prepositional phrase, “in the name,” is implied for both the Son and the Holy Spirit, so that the intended sense of the verse is, “Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and [in the name] of the Son, and [in the name] of the Holy Spirit.” It would be similar to my saying, “Arrest them in the name of the king, and the queen, and the motherland.” Here, the singular use of “name” is justified because “in the name of” is implied for both the queen and the motherland. The sentence should really read, “Arrest them in the name of the king, and [the name of] the queen, and [the name of] the motherland.” If the same is true of Matthew 28:19, then the singular “name” is being applied to each of the three appellations individually, and hence the singular use of name is grammatically justified.

If I am right, then making an ado over the singular use of “name” as an obvious signal that Jesus meant for the disciples to pick up on some deeper meaning is misguided, and irrelevant to understanding how Matthew 28:19 squares with the baptismal formula used by the apostles in Acts.

If I am right, how should we understand what Jesus said against what the apostles did? Why did they baptize in Jesus’ name? What clued them in to the fact that Jesus did not mean for them to literally repeat His words? If it wasn’t His singular use of “name,” maybe it was what Jesus said before speaking those controversial words. He prefaced His command to make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the F/S/HS by saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore…” (28:18). After He issued His command He continued to speak exclusively of Himself: “Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always” (28:20). The emphasis was on Christ alone. Together with the disciples recognition that Jesus encapsulates our experience of God, they understood His words to mean that they were to baptize in His name. The authority (name) in which we are baptized is the same as the one who just claimed all authority in heaven and earth: Jesus Christ. It is for that reason that we are baptized in His name.

Whether it was due to the singular use of “name,” or the context of Jesus’ command, the fact remains that the apostles understood Jesus to mean they were to baptize in His name, and we should follow their lead.

Any thoughts? Any grammatical or theological insights?

UPDATE: Someone emailed me a link to an article by a Oneness Pentecostal making the same points I made here, but in expanded form. The author, Mark Kennicott, also exegetes some of the key passages cited in support of the conclusion that Jesus is the singular name of the Father and Spirit. Check it out.

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Paul Davies recently wrote a piece in The New York Times titled “Taking Science by Faith. Davies is a astrophysicist, origin of life researchers, and philosopher. He is also a pantheist, which is a “religious” version of atheism. That may sound strange, but both share the same ontology (God does not exist).The latter differs from atheism in that it views the universe as an object of religious devotion.For Davies, the laws that govern the universe are the object of religious devotion.

Davies’ metaphysical commitments make his article all the more interesting. He argues that both science and religion have faith commitments. While many philosophers have pointed this out, it is rare for a practicing scientist to admit it. Maybe his background in philosophy is forcing his honesty!I quite Davies at length:

Science, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. Religion, by contrast, is based on faith. … The problem with this neat separation into “non-overlapping magisteria,” as Stephen Jay Gould described science and religion, is that science has its own faith-based belief system. All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. … The most refined expression of the rational intelligibility of the cosmos is found in the laws of physics, the fundamental rules on which nature runs. The laws of gravitation and electromagnetism, the laws that regulate the world within the atom, the laws of motion — all are expressed as tidy mathematical relationships. But where do these laws come from? And why do they have the form that they do?

His point is that before a scientist can even begin the work of science, he must presuppose certain things to be true about the natural world. Those presuppositions are not obtained through the scientific method, but rather give rise to the method itself. Without those presuppositions, science cannot get off the ground.

He speaks of the laws of physics.Where do they come from, and why are they what they are? Why should there be any laws at all?Why doesn’t the physical world behave differently in different places and at different times? Science does not know the answer to these questions.And yet they must rely on the physical laws to inquire of physical reality.He continues:

When I was a student, the laws of physics were regarded as completely off limits. The job of the scientist, we were told, is to discover the laws and apply them, not inquire into their provenance. The laws were treated as “given” — imprinted on the universe like a maker’s mark at the moment of cosmic birth — and fixed forevermore. Therefore, to be a scientist, you had to have faith that the universe is governed by dependable, immutable, absolute, universal, mathematical laws of an unspecified origin. You’ve got to believe that these laws won’t fail, that we won’t wake up tomorrow to find heat flowing from cold to hot, or the speed of light changing by the hour.

Over the years I have often asked my physicist colleagues why the laws of physics are what they are. The answers vary from “that’s not a scientific question” to “nobody knows.” The favorite reply is, “There is no reason they are what they are — they just are.” The idea that the laws exist reasonlessly is deeply anti-rational. After all, the very essence of a scientific explanation of some phenomenon is that the world is ordered logically and that there are reasons things are as they are. If one traces these reasons all the way down to the bedrock of reality — the laws of physics — only to find that reason then deserts us, it makes a mockery of science.

“They just are.”That’s the explanation some atheists give for the existence of the entire cosmos. Why is there something rather than nothing?There is no reason, they say. It just exists as a brute contingent fact, completely inexplicable. As Davies says, this is deeply anti-rational.And yet science, operating on the principle that agent-causation is not a valid explanation for physical phenomena, cannot explain why the universe exists, or why there are physical laws. They are left merely with the observation that they exist, inexplicably. Why?Because the cause of the physical laws, like the cause of the universe, cannot be physical. If science cannot allow a non-physical, agent cause to explain physical phenomenon, science must be content with anti-rational answers like the ones Davies laments.Davies notes the fact that the explanation must lie outside the physical universe:

Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith — namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too. For that reason, both monotheistic religion and orthodox science fail to provide a complete account of physical existence.

This shared failing is no surprise, because the very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place, a fact that makes many scientists squirm. Isaac Newton first got the idea of absolute, universal, perfect, immutable laws from the Christian doctrine that God created the world and ordered it in a rational way. Christians envisage God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe, while physicists think of their laws as inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships.

…

It seems to me there is no hope of ever explaining why the physical universe is as it is so long as we are fixated on immutable laws or meta-laws that exist reasonlessly or are imposed by divine providence. The alternative is to regard the laws of physics and the universe they govern as part and parcel of a unitary system, and to be incorporated together within a common explanatory scheme.

In other words, the laws should have an explanation from within the universe and not involve appealing to an external agency. The specifics of that explanation are a matter for future research. But until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus.

I find it interesting that Davies thinks more research can unveil a materialistic cause for the natural laws. Unless he wishes to advance the notion that the laws of nature developed over time, this project is doomed from the start. Physical laws began with the existence of the universe.If they were there from the beginning of physical reality, physical reality cannot explain their origin.Whatever caused them cannot itself be physical.Only an immaterial source can cause physical reality and physical laws.Davies will never solve the dilemma of where the natural laws came from until he opens himself to the metaphysical possibility of God’s existence. Only an immaterial, personal, intelligent, rational, and powerful being could produce physical reality with all of its attendant laws.